Alright, so the assignment for this blog post is to comment on the relationship between a writer and the publication process. To give everyone reading this who doesn’t have a clue about the relevance of this topic for a blog post to me, let me try to fill you in a little bit. Basically, I’m supposed to imagine that I had just spent two years writing a book, or maybe just a year. I can write fast like that. Maybe my IPP (independent professional project) is a short novella, which it isn’t, but that is beside the point; anyway, I’d have probably done a collection of short stories or poems or something if it were. But, if I did, how would I go about publishing it?
Well, I guess that’s where it gets interesting. I don’t really know, what I’d do. I mean, I think that first off, I’d plan on sending my stories of poems away to magazines. Something like the New Yorker for example. I say this because looking at it form the prospective of not writing for my IPP, I am slow when it comes to creative works. I take a while to come up with an idea, and then it takes me even longer to get my thoughts organized, plus there are all the changes that have to me made to make the story work. I think about the short story I wrote last term when I say this. I basically wrote the entire story around one image, which appeared at the very end of the story and I had to find a way to fit it in. I didn’t even get that far in the first draft, and when I was writing it I felt like I had to force it in, and then go back and change everything to make the entire story work. I also made changes to it would have and ending. In the end I did pretty good on it and received some good feedback.
I was given some suggestions by Winnipeg author David Elias to add more scenes and extend the story some, this was in late November or early December I can’t remember, Ha that rhymed, and I still haven’t got around to touching it. So just based on how slowly I work I think submitting one at a time to a magazine would be the most natural fit to the way I write.
However, at the same time, the idea of having an entire book published is pretty enticing. I think it could be great to have my work published in my very own book. So lets say I could get my act together and get all the work done, I think it would be awesome to have it published.
Now, I have to consider that publishers probably refuse me if I submitted my work. When I was talking to David he mentioned that it can be extremely hard to be published and that often times your work is sent back and either changes are suggested or you are just out right refused. This goes for being published as a book or in a magazine.
I think this would be difficult for me to deal with, just because when write something that I like, I get pretty attached to it. Yet, at the same time I don’t really like the idea of self publishing or uploading to Amazon, because part of the enjoyment of being published would be the good feeling, after knowing my work was accepted by someone else as good enough to be published. That’s pretty vain huh?
I do have “plans” to submit some of my work to publishers or a magazine one-day I think, but I don’t know when that will be or how I will go about it. I feel like I have a lot of time. When I was talking to David about it he said he didn’t start thinking about being a writer until he was a bit older, so I’m not in much of a rush. Anyway, that’s pretty much all I have to say about it.
Maybe this wasn’t as much of a Michael Bay blockbuster as I thought it would be. I think I needed more killer robots, bad special effects. Well shucks.
Let me make it up to you with this.
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